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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

How is Lily Doing in School?

Well since you asked the answer is better than I expected. Yes, it is still early and the spelling test was very small this week, but this is what she brought home after her first full week.

Do you see that? Brilliant!
I wish you could have seen the smile to go along with that 100%. It was worth all of the worry and aggravation I have had the last 18 months with her.

You see, there have been times and there still are times when I wonder if Lily will ever catch up. For those of you who do not know, Lily was adopted as a healthy 6 year old. Healthy yes, but so much catching up to do after living in an orphanage for six years. The best we can tell is that there were no toys, no books, no school. What did she do all day? We think she played outside and watched TV. We don't even think she was given chores. She had no critical thinking skills, no problem solving, she was living a "ground-hog day" existence. Each day ran into the other without much change. She did not have choices. She just did what they told her to do. They told her when to eat, when to go to bed, etc. She had never left the walls of the orphanage according to her.

The one thing she did have was survival skills. She knew how to get her fair share, and she knew if she did not get it. Still to this day she watches me very carefully give out the food at dinner. She may not be able to do some math skills, but she can tell if someone has two more grains of rice than she has.

She also has great organizational skills. She can put things away and packaged as if new. What little she did get she must have had to put away securely.

So getting her to think for herself and think in a logical manner is taking a lot of practice.

When I think back to those first months when it took so long to learn her colors and I wondered if there was a learning disability. I went over and over colors with her. She eventually got them but it took so much repetition. As I worked with her I found out that everything we did took so much repetition.

To think that she is now reading, yes at a very early level, but she is reading is almost a miracle to me. At times I would get very angry with her, but to see now the fruits of that work is amazing. A part of me wants to continue the homeschooling, because now I can finally see some of the results. I don't know what God has in store for Lily. Adopting older has had its challenges.

But what we are seeing is a little girl who loves life, loves people, and loves God. She has the opportunity at a future that has no limits.

7 comments:

Congrats Lily on your first 100%, I am so proud of you!!! That is absolutely amazing! I still can't believe the changes that you and Lyla have made in the short 18 months since we have had you both! We love you!

That beautiful smile is why the Lord placed Lily in your lives. She is like a fragile caterpillar, wrapped in it's chrysalis, slowly - painfully - becoming a beautiful butterfly. You are giving her her wings. Soon she will soar!

I had no idea that Lily's orphanage life was so basic. No wonder homeschooling was hard for both of you. As I'm learning with my own daughter, I cannot expect her to memorize colors and letters but LEARN them through the normal process that our babies begin with, songs and play and repetition. She doesn't know her colors by name, but she can color a picture beautifully. She'll learn them through repetition, like when I color with her and ask for a certain color and help her identify it. She'll also learn through matching, sorting, and imitating. One who is a teacher said that it takes kids 2-5 years to learn the ABCs, so not to expect my daughter to memorize them in only 5 months. It won't take her 2-5 years to learn them because she's older and she's smart, but I did have an uneducated idea of how fast she'd learn the ABCs.